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Development and transformation of social structures

Civilization: Mesopotamia

Name: Hilary Wright





Theme
 How does this theme apply to your civilization?
Gender roles and relations
  • Men dominated public and private life. They made marriage arrangements, decided which family members would have what jobs, and ruled as kings.
  • Few women influenced kings and some recieved an education and became scribes. Others worked as midwives, shopkeepers, bakers, or brewers.
  • Hammurabi's Code recognized adult men as the head of the household and entrusted the men with major decisions.
  • Also, Hammurabi's Code was much more strict on the men, then on the women. For example, if a married women commited adultry, she and her partner would be drown, whereas men were permitted to commit adultry without penaly.
Family and kinship
  • Kings originally won position, but some kings made arrangements for their sons to succeed them.
  • Nobles were mostly members of the royal family or they were close supporters of the king.
Racial and ethnic constructions
  • N/A
Social and economic classes
  • Ancient Mesopotamia had ruling classes of kings and nobles, who usually won their positions at war
  • Kings were so great they were considered offspring of the god. Gilgamesh, a great warrior and hero of Uruk, was two-thirds divine and one-third human.
  • Next were priests and priestesses who were in charge of temples and religious services.
  • The rest of the people in Mesopotamia were in the classes of free commoners, dependent clients, and slaves.
    • Free commoners mostly worked as cultivators on their family's land.
    • Dependent clients owned no land and worked as agricultural laborers for others, paying taxes with their crops.
    • Slaves were either, prisoners of war, convicted criminals, or people so far into debt, they had to go into slavery to pay it off. Slaves also worked as agricultural laborers.